Blue Cheese And Roasted Garlic Gourmet Elk Burger

Roasted whole garlic has its own unique flavour which is far more subtle tasting than minced or chopped raw garlic.
Combine it with blue cheese (either Danish Blue or English Stilton) and you have one great tasting gourmet burger!

To avoid excessive browning or burning, these burgers should be grilled at a lower temperature than what is used for our other elk burgers.



Ingredients

2 large heads of roasted garlic (see method below)
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
1/3 cup chopped shallots (1 large shallot will usually do)
1 1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp olive oil
4 tbsp blue cheese
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 to 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
2 lb ground elk meat (15-20% fat content preferred)

Method

Put the first eight ingredients into a food processor.
Process all ingredients (stopping and scraping down the sides when necessary) until well blended, about 2 minutes.

Put the ground elk in a medium sized mixing bowl.
Pour in the processed ingredients from food processor.
Work in by hand until the processed ingredients and elk meat are completely combined.

Shape meat mixture into 6 patties.
Refrigerate patties for 45 minutes.

Pre-heat the barbecue to medium temperature.

Remove burgers from refrigerator and brush some vegetable oil on the top side of each.
Also lightly oil the barbecue grill to keep the burgers from sticking.

Start cooking the burgers by placing them top side down on the grill.
Flip the burgers every couple of minutes and cook until well done, about 16 to 18 minutes total time.
If at any time the burgers seem to be browning excessively, then move them to a cooler part of the grill and continue cooking.

Roasted Garlic Made Simple

Preheat the oven to 375F.

Cut the tip off each head of garlic so that the tops of most of the cloves are exposed.
Set each head of garlic on a small piece of aluminum foil.
Pour about a teaspoon of olive oil over the cut end of each head of garlic.
Wrap to seal each head and roast for 45 to 55 minutes or until the garlic cloves are becoming golden in colour.

Remove heads of garlic from oven and allow them to cool.
Once cool, squeeze out the roasted garlic paste by hand.
Work it out from the root-end towards the open tip-end of each head.

Add the roasted garlic paste to the recipe as directed.